Linked Languages Resources

Baka (Cameroon)

bkc

Baka (also called Be-bayaga, Be-bayaka, and Bibaya de L’est) is a dialect cluster of Ubangian languages spoken by the Baka
Pygmies of Cameroon and Gabon. The people are ethnically close to the Aka, the two together called the Mbenga (Bambenga),
but the languages are not related apart from some vocabulary dealing with the forest economy, which suggests the Aka may have
shifted to Bantu from a language like Baka about 1500 CE. Some 30% of Baka vocabulary is not Ubangian. Much of this concerns
a specialized forest economy, such as words for edible plants, medicinal plants, and honey collecting, and has been posited
as the remnant of an ancestral Pygmy language which has otherwise vanished. However, apart from some words shared with the
Aka, there is no evidence for a wider linguistic affiliation with any of the other Pygmy peoples. It is unclear if three minor
varieties are mutually intelligible with Baka proper. They are Gundi (Ngundi), Ganzi, and Massa (Limassa). Most Massa have
shifted to Gundi, which is spoken by 9,000 people. Source : DBpedia